Cannabis smoking teen placed on bond

When he appeared before Chief Magistrate Ian Weekes earlier this week, Josh Aklan York heard that a theft charge hanging over his head had been dropped.

However, the teenager was not so lucky when he returned to the No. 1 District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court on Friday to answer three drug charges.

The resident of Hindsbury Road, Bank Hall, St Michael was placed on a bond after pleading guilty to possessing, trafficking and intent to supply cannabis on October 31. The cannabis weighed 26 grammes and had a street value of $129.

Reading the facts, court prosecutor Sergeant Kenmore Phillips said police who were on duty at Savvy on the Beach, in Bay Street, St Michael, detected a strong scent of marijuana and saw York in a chair cutting up the vegetable matter. They approached and asked to search him, and he consented. The officers found a transparent bag with the drug inside his haversack.

He told the officers, “Dat is my herb I does smoke. I get that from a tree I got plant at home.”

Admitting that he had started smoking weed at the age of 14, York told Magistrate Weekes that since leaving secondary school, he worked with his father painting but he (the father) was currently overseas.

A relative who was in the court said they had only become aware of York’s drug use last month and attempts were being made to get him rehabilitated.

Magistrate Weekes placed the youth on a six-month bond to keep the peace for the trafficking offence. If he breaches the bond, he will have to pay a $1 000 fine forthwith or spend 60 days in prison.